Just Meredith
by Flute Domination
Summary: Book Three in the Meredith Series. The line between good and evil becomes fuzzy, even in Meredith's own eyes, as she struggles with pressure from both sides of the growing conflict. Based on the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.


**Disclaimer: The usual. I don't own the Harry Potter universe.**

* * *

"A prince never lacks legitimate reason to break his promise."

-Niccolo Machiavelli

"Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."

-Orson Welles

* * *

**Chapter One: Friends**

She had to find a computer with Internet access. She had to. Horrible things were happening, and her friends in America would start to freak out (again) if she didn't contact them soon.

It was Meredith's second day back in Cokeworth. Already, she was getting bored. Already, the humidity was getting to her. Already, she had written two letters to Neville, both of which she decided not to send until later.

The Hogwarts Express had returned to London only yesterday. Meredith had Apparated with her father to their house in Cokeworth that same afternoon after spending three hours organizing cupboards and grading the last of the students' assignments. (The students had obviously become quite lazy by the last assignment; at least then the handwriting was big, which made it moderately legible.)

One long night had passed. Meredith took down her wall of origami paper and spent part of the night taking it apart. But by midnight, every sheet was in a neat stack in a drawer. So she continued reading the book her father had given her the summer before. She got to a section on vampires and spent hours taking in the information. If she had known about this section, she would have read it sooner; but when the table of contents looks like every other packed page in the book, there's not much hope of finding anything.

Being in this house reminded Meredith of so much she didn't want to remember. Like the hidden door in the back of her closet and the violet pearl of magic wrapped in paper and tucked in a drawer. The door reminded her of Talitha's diary and private potions lab. The orb reminded her that she wasn't complete, and couldn't do what other wizards could. And that it might cost her life.

In the morning, Meredith put on fresh clothes, including a long-sleeved shirt, and she went out in search of the Muggle world. How she could even think about America when such horrible things had been happening in the wizarding world, she didn't know.

She went directly toward the old park in town and sat on the swings in the shade. Seeing nobody was nearby, she rolled up her sleeves and relaxed. She didn't want to think about Voldemort; living in fear was getting really old. She still felt bad for Harry, even though he had no clue she had anything to do with the death of his godfather. _Her mother's cousin._ Maybe that side of the family was slowly being killed off. Sirius was dead, Bellatrix looked dead, and Lucius Malfoy was in Azkaban, on his way to being dead.

And now another summer was here. Another summer with nothing to do but worry and wait.

She fell asleep in the grass mid-afternoon.

_Her arm was burning. She sat up and looked around but everything was foggy. She glanced down at her left arm. The snake on the Dark Mark was twisting and writhing around the skull. Meredith looked up again and Lord Voldemort was standing in front of her. Meredith jumped back, startled. _

_ "Pleased to see me again, I see, Miss Snape."_

_ Meredith didn't respond._

_ "I can see why you're so surprised; I'll admit to being surprised as well. What are you doing asleep in the middle of the day?"_

_ "Um…I fell asleep…"_

_ "Bored already, eh? Not for long. I'm sending a message to your father. You are both to attend a gathering of my Death Eaters in one week." He changed to a more severe tone. "I'm not impressed with your performance, Miss Snape. You know that. My Death Eaters were late enough that Potter was all the way into the Ministry before they were ready. Your timing was far from satisfactory." He gave her a look that chilled her to the bone…_

Meredith woke up. It was dark outside. She must have slept for quite a while. She needed to get back home before her father started to worry. She stood up and brushed herself off.

"A bit late, is it not?"

Already on edge, hearing her father behind her made her jump even higher. "Do you want me to be home before a certain time?"

"Yes, usually at sunset. Preferably well before then. These are dark times. Speaking of which, did you receive the Dark Lord's message?"

"Yes. While I was asleep."

"Good. We'll talk about that later. Come, let's go home."

As they left the park, Severus took a long look around. At the bush he had once hidden behind. At the swings, where Lily had once flown…

* * *

_Hey Neville! Sorry if this is way too soon to be writing, but I'm bored. Extremely bored. My dad doesn't like when I go out alone, so I don't wander around much. Besides, I'm a little scared. I noticed in the Daily Prophet that some more people disappeared. Please don't be next. Stay safe._

_ Anyway, it's a good thing Dad put a ventilation spell on the house, or else we'd be roasting. _

_ Do you know when OWL scores are supposed to come? Probably later in the summer? Maybe with our schedules for next year?_

_ What have you been doing so far? Have you gotten a new wand yet? I hope your grandmother didn't react too badly when she saw the broken one._

_ Hope you're doing well._

_Love, Meredith._

"Dad, can I use the owl?" Meredith asked as she walked into the sitting room.

"Why?"

"To send a letter."

Her father gave her a _no duh_ expression. "To whom?"

"To Neville." She didn't care about what his reaction might be.

Severus took a deep breath through his nose. "Very well." He stood up from his chair and went down the hall to his office. He came back out with the black owl and let the bird walk onto Meredith's arm. "Don't expect a reply until tomorrow. If she isn't back by the day after that, with or without a reply…" He gave her a look. If the owl didn't come back, Meredith would be paying for a new one, or worse.

Meredith sent the owl and watched it fly away into the blue-gray sky.

She spent the afternoon reading in the sitting room, across from her father. Wormtail brought them a light lunch. They sat in silence the rest of the time.

Meredith got up and went to her room. She had to do something. She couldn't stand just sitting around. If this was what her entire summer was going to be like… She didn't want to think about it. She just wished she could move in with the Weasleys again. At least _they_ knew how to have fun.

She grabbed her guitar from where it stood against the wall, and went back out to the front of the house. She couldn't wander, but she was allowed to sit on the steps.

"Where are you going?"

"Outside."

"You could always practice in here."

What?

"Will you sing something?"

_WHAT?_ "How did you know—?"

"I know things. Will you?"

"No!" She marched outside.

"Don't go past the park."

She went straight to the park, forgetting her previous intentions of sitting on the porch steps. She sat in the grass and started plucking strings and strumming chords. Half an hour passed without her noticing.

"Well, I can't say I expected to find _you_ here, Merry." An American accent. Meredith looked up. Between the trees stood Eric Ross, a boy from Meredith's high school class. "So you really did move to England. Do you like your real parents?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"That's good. You should really call Nicole, though. She's really worried because you haven't emailed her yet this summer."

"The" –what was it called?—"_Wi-Fi_ is down at my house. And I don't have data or a cell phone."

"I'd let you use mine, but I don't have service here. Hey, since when do you play guitar?"

"Only recently. Since when do you visit here?"

His smile cracked and he recovered a second later. "I've been staying for a week with my aunt, uncle and cousin. I leave in two and a half weeks. Why are you wearing long sleeves? It's ninety-five degrees out here."

It was her own face's turn to crack and recover. She shrugged her shoulders. "No reason."

"Yeah, right." He grinned. "You're hiding something. Did you, like, get a tattoo?"

"What? No!" Then she had an idea. "I broke my arm this year and there's a huge scar."

"Can I see?"

"No!"

"Fine, then. Why so serious? I was trying to be funny."

_You're one to talk, after making that face when I asked why you were here. If you only knew what my life was like._ "Sorry. It's been a stressful year."

"Oh yeah? What's school like here?"

Improvising time. "I don't know. I've been away too long to compare schools. I guess it's more like a private school."

"Cool."

"Yeah. Well, I should be getting back home, probably."

"Are you sure you couldn't come over for a while? I've told my cousin all about you and how you moved here. He said he might have met you before."

Hmm. He had a phone. But who could these people be? She breathed in deeply. Two years ago, she would have been dying of allergies here in the grass that smelled dry and musty. She was a witch now. She wasn't a Muggle anymore. Why was she still trying to be one?

"Sure, I'll come." She didn't have to be home for another couple of hours, and she needed a break from the wizard world. Things were getting bad, and she could always use a distraction.

"Great! Come on!"

Meredith semi-reluctantly rose and swung her guitar on her back. "Lead the way."

They soon came to a small town with rows and rows of brightly-painted single story houses. Over the roofs, Meredith thought she could see a few store signs. Since neither she nor Eric had anything to say, they walked in silence until they came to the little black gate in front of a yellow house. Eric opened the small gate and let Meredith in. The door was unlocked, so they both walked into the house.

"Uncle Vince, I'm back! I found my friend!" Eric called to the quiet house.

"Wow, it actually _is_ her," Eric's cousin peered at them over the back of the couch. To their left was the living room, where the cousin seemed to have spread photos and notes; he was now pinning them all to a large cork bulletin board. To the right was a closed door, probably to a guest bedroom. Down the center hallway, Meredith could see three more closed doors, an open door by a kitchen, and a dining room area.

"Meredith, this is my cousin, Derek. Derek, this is Meredith."

Meredith looked closely at Derek. He looked familiar… "You work in the candy shop in London, right?"

"Yeah. You came in on Christmas wearing a Slytherin scarf." In answer to her unspoken question, he explained, "I got paid more for overtime that day. Only reason I'd be working on Christmas."

"Ah." She pointed at the board. "What are you doing?"

"For the summer, I'm taking a few media classes. Still deciding what I really want to do with my life. What about you?"

"I still don't know either."

"You have more time to decide than I do. So, what are you two doing now?"

Eric answered him. "Talk. Catch up. A lot can happen in two years."

"_Right_," Derek said, picking up a picture and a thumbtack.

Eric rolled his eyes and walked into the dining area. Meredith followed him. "Do you want anything?" Eric asked, pulling two glasses from a cupboard. "Water?"

"Sure."

Eric filled the two cups with water and came back to the table with them. They both sat. "First things first, you're calling Nicole," he said, taking his phone out of his pocket and sliding it across the table to Meredith.

She almost didn't know what to do with it. Two years was so long ago. Looking back felt like comparing a first year to a seventh year student at Hogwarts. And so many things had happened in those two years.

She pressed a button and followed the instructions on the screen to unlock the device. On the home screen, there was a square labelled "Contacts." She pressed the screen there. She scrolled through the names, some of which she knew, and others which she didn't.

Eric watched this with confusion. Meredith was acting like she hadn't used a phone since she left. Not even one of those rotor-dial old phones. She even put the wrong end to her ear at first, but she quickly changed it, embarrassed.

Maybe she had developed some kind of palsy, he theorized in his head. Maybe something had happened and she wasn't the Meredith he once knew…

"Hello?" a girl's voice sounded loudly on the phone in Meredith's ear. Startled, she almost dropped it on the table.

"You accidentally put it on speaker," Eric explained. He took the phone out of Meredith's hand and set it on the table. "Hi, Nicole."

"Yes, hello, Eric. How's everything going there? Why are you calling me so early in the morning? It's summer and I'm sleeping in."

"You'll never guess who I found today." He grinned.

"Oh my gosh! Is she there with you? No way!"

"Yeah, she's here. You're on speaker phone."

"Oh my gosh! Karen? Karen G—"

"Wrong 'she,' Nicole," Eric interrupted her. "Meredith is here."

The following speech was far from decipherable.

"How are you, Nicole?" Meredith asked the little plastic box on the table.

"I'm great! How are _you_? It's been so long! What's your last name now? Where do you go to school? Where do you live?"

"Whoa, whoa, one question at a time! My last name is Snow." Everdeen wasn't going to work, and Snow was relatively close to Snape. "I don't go to Hogwarts, if that's what you're wondering. I go to what is considered regular school here, but it's nothing like public high school in America. And it turns out I live in the same town as Eric's family."

"What's your family like?"

"They're… interesting. But it's crazy how much better I fit in with them than my adoptive family. So what's been going on with the group since I left?"

"I don't know. It was weird for some time, but now we're all too stressed for things to be weird."

"Stressed? About what?"

"College, silly! We're almost in our senior year. Where are you thinking of applying?"

"I have another year of school before I have to do college stuff. Good luck with your applications."

"Thanks. We're all going to need it."

The conversation continued for approximately another hour. Nicole explained, in detail, major events Meredith had missed and new people who had become part of their group.

"Meredith, you don't know how great it is to be able to talk to you again. Do you have a phone number?"

"Sorry, I don't."

"Oh." They were silent for what seemed like a long time. "Tell me when you're coming to visit, okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

Eric took the phone and hung up. "That was nice."

"Yeah." But truthfully, Meredith was filled with longing for the life her Muggle friends had. Worrying about college was better than worrying about being murdered. She'd take college applications any day. "What time is it?"

"A bit after two," Eric said, looking at his phone. "What do you want to do?"

How long would it take her father to realize she had gone to the next town? "I don't know." There was a crash outside; Meredith jumped. "What was that?"

Eric got up and looked out the window. "Just one of Aunt Pat's flowerpots. It was hanging from a hook, and I guess the hook broke.

"Oh." Meredith seemed to calm down, but she kept glancing nervously at the window. Her left arm wasn't hurting, so it couldn't have been anything more than a flowerpot.

"Why are you so tense?"

"I'm not tense."

"Yes, you _are_. What's going on?"

"Nothing!"

"You're lying. What happened? You had trouble using the phone, too. Why?"

"I just haven't used a phone in a long time."

"Maybe not, but you're also on edge. It's almost like you haven't been around people."

"I _have_ been around people, Eric, and I've seen a lot of different people you never have!"

"Fine. I was just wondering."

They played a game of Clue and then Meredith said she had to go. It was about four, and her father would be expecting her for supper. She had time to walk all the way back. Eric offered to walk her home, but Meredith had a polite excuse prepared. He walked her to the bus stop nearby; but instead of waiting for the bus, Meredith waited for Eric to turn the corner so she could walk home without him seeing.

* * *

**A/N:** Welcome back, dear readers! I told you Book 3 would debut in spring and here it is! I don't know when I will be uploading the next few chapters I have written. It's been kind of hectic around here, with me graduating from high school and going away to college soon. But I am determined to finish this series eventually! ANd sometime hopefully soon I'll make further edits to the first two books in the series. As always, thank you for reading. ~Flute Domination


End file.
